Great Performers SeriesSunday, April 15, 2018 at 7:30 Davies Symphony Hall

Sir András Schiff piano

Mendelssohn Fantasy in F-sharp minor, Opus 28, Sonate écossaise (1834)

Con moto agitato—Andante • Allegro con moto • Presto

Beethoven Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp major, Opus 78 (1809)

Adagio cantabile—Allegro ma non troppo • Allegro vivace

Brahms Eight Piano Pieces, Opus 76 (1879)

Capriccio in F sharp minor Capriccio in B minor Intermezzo in A flat major Intermezzo in B flat major Capriccio in C sharp minor Intermezzo in A major Intermezzo in A minor Capriccio in C major

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Brahms Seven Fantasies, Opus 116 (1892)

Capriccio in D minor Intermezzo in A minor Capriccio in G minor Intermezzo in E major Intermezzo in E minor Intermezzo in E major Capriccio in D minor

J.S. Bach English Suite No. 6 in D minor, BWV 811 (c. 1720)

Prelude • Allemande • Courante • Sarabande • Double • Gavotte I • Gavotte II • Gigue

The Great Performers Series is made possible through the generosity of Chevron.

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ANDRÁS SCHIFF

APRIL 15

and

present

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Michael Tilson Thomas

and the

Board of Governors

of the San Francisco Symphony

gratefully acknowledge

the support of

Presenting Sponsor of the

Great Performers Series

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Thank you for joining us this evening as San Francisco Performancesagain presents acclaimed pianist András Schiff in association with theSan Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall. We are honored topartner with the Symphony for a sixth season as co-presenter of SirAndrás.

San Francisco Performances has been a leader in the Bay Area cul-tural scene since 1979. We have introduced hundreds of classical mu -sic, jazz, and contemporary dance artists to audiences, including inter-nationally renowned performers like Yo-Yo Ma, the Juilliard StringQuartet, Philip Glass, and the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Oftenbringing artists to our home venue, the Herbst Theatre, San FranciscoPerformances is a premier presenter of intimate chamber concerts, solorecitals, and contemporary dance.

Coming up on May 6, pianist Yuja Wang returns to Davies Sym -phony Hall for another electrifying recital. This special concert, also aco-presentation between SF Performances and the San Francisco Sym -phony, will feature works by Ligeti, Scriabin, Chopin, and Prokofiev.We hope you will consider joining us here at Davies Symphony Hall foranother evening of glorious music.

The recital is one of the most personal and enriching musical expe-riences. We look forward to sharing these performances with you.

With thanks and warm wishes,

Melanie SmithPresident, San Francisco Performances

FROM THE PRESIDENT OF SAN FRANCISCO PERFORMANCES

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Mendelssohn: Fantasy in F-sharp minor for Piano,Opus 28, Sonate écossaise

THE LANDSCAPES, LITERATURE, AND MUSIC OF SCOTLAND PROVIDEDinspiration to a bevy of Romantic composers, including Schubert,Brahms, Bruch, and particularly Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47), whoabsorbed the country’s many beauties and mysteries during an 1829walking tour. The HebridesOverture and the Scottish Symphony are thebest known of his Scottish-themed works, but the Fantasy in F-sharpminor, Opus 28 of 1834 also attests to Mendelssohn’s zest for all thingsHibernian, as its original title Sonate écossaise nicely illustrates.(“Sonate” also gives a clue as to the work’s unique form, straddling themore formal sonata and looser fantasy forms.)

In three movements—one moderate tempo, one fast, and one veryfast—Mendelssohn explores Scottish folk tunes as well as the evolvingcapabilities of the nineteenth-century piano. (Consider the atmos-pheric Scottish fog that closes the first movement, via holding downthe damper pedal throughout the final six measures.)

The first movement (Con moto agitato—Andante) could easily passas a Song without Words, alternating as it does wind-whipped arpeg-gios with a heartfelt melody made up of gently falling figures. The sec-ond-place Allegro con moto contrasts a sturdy but smooth march witha melodic passage in octaves over shimmering left-hand figurations.The Presto finale is one of those delectable Mendelssohnian whirligigsthat spins merrily and culminates in a spectacular spray of pianisticfireworks.

Beethoven: Sonata in F-sharp major for Piano, Opus 78

EVEN A CURSORY LOOK OVER THE LIST OF BEETHOVEN’S THIRTY-TWOpiano sonatas will reveal that they, like city buses, tend to arrive ingroups. One particular cluster originates from the years immediatelyfollowing the Symphony No. 6, Pastoral and Piano Concerto No. 5,Emperor, i.e., 1808–09. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) had beencomposing at white heat since the turn of the century and his energyshowed no signs of flagging, although for the moment he was withoutsymphonic projects. (He would be back in the symphonic saddle by 1811.)

The sonata-group in question includes Opus 78 in F-sharp majorand Opus 79 in G major, both from 1809, and Opus 81a in E-flat major,Les Adieux, written a year later. All three reflect a marked departurefrom the symphonic ambitions of the Waldstein and Appassionatasonatas of four years earlier.

The Opus 78 Piano Sonata is dedicated to Therese Brunsvik,Beethoven’s student and sister of the Josephine Brunsvik who is anodds-on favorite for Beethoven’s mysterious “Immortal Beloved.” Thislyrical and structurally modest two-movement sonata may very wellreflect Therese’s technical skill (good but not virtuoso) and particularlyher strong musicianship, given that F-sharp major would have been a

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daunting key for an amateur pianist to navigate. The Sonata also pro-vides us with a tantalizing glimpse into Beethoven’s late style, begin-ning as it does with a serene Adagio cantabile melody and continuingwith an Allegro ma non troppo that complements all that equanimitywith burnished piano sonorities. The downright gemütlich secondmovement alternates a brief but jovial tune with a series of scintillatingpiano figurations, the whole traversing a goodly variety of keys andharmonic permutations before flying off into a delectably mixedmajor-minor conclusion.

Brahms: Eight Piano Pieces, Opus 76Seven Fantasies, Opus 116

DURING THE MID-1870S JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-97) FOUND HIMSELFin considerable demand as a pianist, primarily as an interpreter of hisown music. That emphasis on concertizing seems to have rekindled hisinterest in writing solo piano music, dormant since the Opus 39Waltzes of 1865.

The piano music that emerged beginning with Opus 76 is a far cryfrom the massive sonatas of Brahms’s early period, or the bravura setsof variations of his middle years. The eight piano pieces of Opus 76 arean unmatched set, each a world into itself, each world created with astriking economy of means. Arnold Schoenberg was to coin the phrase“developing variation” to describe Brahms’s preferred technique inwhich “variation of the features of a basic unit [i.e. musical idea] pro-duces all the thematic formulations which provide for fluency, con-trasts, variety, logic and unity, on the one hand, and character, mood,expression, and every needed differentiation, on the other hand—thuselaborating the idea of the piece.”

Brahms was never one for descriptive titles à la Liszt; instead herestricted himself to “Intermezzo” for reflective or relatively slowpieces and “Capriccio” for faster and/or more virtuosic affairs. Extra-musical content is disavowed, and the musical form is all; as musicolo-

Scottish landscape,from the diary ofMendelssohn andKarl Klingemann, bythe composer, 1829.

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gist Michael Musgrave reminds us, “for Brahms formwas never a matter of abstract patterning, but the palpa-ble articulation of the ebb and flow of feeling.”

No. 1, Capriccio in F-sharp minor opens in a breath-less sotto voce, marked Un poco agitato. The hushedatmosphere gives way quickly to a grand fortissimo state-ment, followed by a passage of suave lyricism. Ominous,to be sure, but also consoling in its major-key ending.

No. 2, Capriccio in B minor is one of those bouncy“gypsy” affairs that Brahms could spin out with suchélan. All that charm masks the skillful transformationsof the thematic materials that permeate the ever-chang-ing, ever-growing nature of this deceptively lightheartedpiece.

No. 3, Intermezzo in A-flat major packs considerableemotion into its brief duration, marked by an uncom-plicated structure of two ideas that are played in succes-sion, then repeated with modest variation. More oftenthan not the barline is hidden behind a syncopatedmelody and gently persistent left-hand arpeggiations.

No. 4, Intermezzo in B-flat major reminds us thatBrahms was a towering master of the art song. Lyricaland bittersweet, it opens in an unsettled harmonic state,resolved only with the valedictory cadential figures thatclose the first and third sections.

No. 5, Capriccio in C-sharp minor, serves as the col-lection’s heart center. Those wishing to explore that“developing variation” technique outlined by Schoen -berg could do no better than to spend abundant timewith this complex composition that dwells in constantebb and flow, propulsive and darkly dramatic.

No. 6, Intermezzo in A major returns us to the lyricalworld of No. 4, while indulging to the fullest in Brahms’sfavored rhythmic devices such as three-versus-two and asyncopated bass line.

No. 7, Intermezzo in A minor takes a seemingly un -promising shard of music—just a few descending scalesteps—and finds in it almost endless development andvariety.

No. 8, Capriccio in A minor might look fearsome onthe page—it’s almost Scriabin-esque in its ceaseless tor-rent of notes—but it reveals itself as overall good-humored and optimistic, bringing the set to a close witha scintillating fountain of C major harmony. BEGINNING IN 1892 BRAHMS RETURNED TO PIANO CHAR-acter pieces in a series of twenty short keyboard worksthat were published as Opuses 116 through 119. Whilethey bear some similarities to the earlier Opus 76 set—being made up largely of pieces called Capriccio andIntermezzo that display his signature “developing vari-

Clara Schumann

told her journal

that Brahms’s late

piano works were

“full of poetry,

passion, sentiment,

emotion, and with

the most wonderful

effects of tone . . .

In these pieces I

at last feel musical

life stir again in

my soul.”

ation” technique—they properly belong to the intro-verted and nostalgic soundscape of Brahms’s final years.

If these precious and rarefied masterpieces can be saidto have a presiding spirit, it would be Clara Schu mann(1819-96), Robert’s widow and Brahms’s lifelong friend.By 1890 Clara’s health was failing, as was her ability toplay the piano. Given that she was one of the few peo-ple who saw any of the late pieces prior to publication,it isn’t at all far-fetched to suppose that Brahms wrotethem with her in mind—and/or perhaps as a peace offer-ing after a nasty spat that had preoccupied both of themthroughout most of 1891. Clara told her journal that thepieces were “full of poetry, passion, sentiment, emotion,and with the most wonderful effects of tone . . . In thesepieces I at last feel musical life stir again in my soul.”

Seven Fantasies, Opus 116 would appear to be asomewhat more matched set than any of the others. It isbookended by paired Capric cios, both in D minor, bothof a turbulent and dramatic nature, and both seethingwith cross-rhythms. A mid-point Capriccio, No. 3 in Gminor and marked Allegro passionato, is a scherzomovement that could have been transplanted from achamber work; in ABA form, its tempestuous outer sec-tions flank a songful yet passionate Trio, marked Unpoco meno allegro.

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Clara Schumann

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The set’s four Intermezzos, on the other hand, stand amongBrahms’s most lyrical and beguiling compositions. No. 2 in A minorsubjects a deceptively simple three-note figure to a chain of expansionsand developments, including a shift to major mode before subsidingback to minor at the end. No. 4 in A major (Adagio) takes Brahmsianintrospection to unprecedented lengths via the frequent juxtapositionof a rising triplet against a descending sigh in the soprano, with a mid-dle section that is downright Debussian in its shimmering delicacy.No. 5 in E minor, strikingly enigmatic even by late Brahms standards,bears a most detailed directive to the performer: Andante con grazia edintimissimo sentiment (Andante, with grace and the most intimatesentiment). No. 6 in E major may be relatively uncomplicated, but itevokes the melancholic lyricism of the Clarinet Trio in A minor, Opus114, written just the previous year.

J.S. Bach: English Suite No. 6 in D minor, BWV 811

BEFORE HE SETTLED FOR GOOD IN LEIPZIG, STARTING IN 1723, JOHANNSebastian Bach (1685–1750) changed addresses a fair number of timesas he sought career advancement throughout Thuringia and Saxony.Following positions in Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, and Weimar, he foundnear-ideal employment in 1717 as Capellmeister to the music-lovingyoung Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, with whose enthusiastic sup-port Bach turned out a steady stream of secular masterpieces.(Concerted church music was not favored in Calvinist Cöthen.)

The Cöthen years saw the genesis of The Well-Tempered Clavier, theBrandenburg Concertos, solo concertos, and a bevy of suites for variousinstrumentations: solo violin, solo cello, lute, orchestra, and above all,keyboard. Suites, or partitas, were among the more popular genres ofthe Baroque era. By Bach’s day a standardized framework had beenestablished, based on four mandatory dances: allemande, courante,sarabande, and gigue. To those might be added an introductory preludeand/or a virtuosic finale. A sprinkling of galanterien, such as ga vottes,bourrées, minuets, lourés, and even a polonaise here or there, roundedout the whole.

Bach’s keyboard suites fall into three collections of six each, accom-panied by a few unincorporated stragglers. Each collection hasacquired a title that, while meaningless, provides a handy reference:French suites, English suites, and Partitas.

Dating somewhat earlier than the French suites, the six Englishsuites are substantial affairs with opening preludes and an overall en -hanced scale. Nobody really knows why they are called “English”; Bachhimself seems to have referred to them as “Preludes with their suites.”Among the more educated of the guesses we find early Bach biographerJohann Nikolaus Forkel’s notion that the suites were written specificallyfor an English nobleman; others have connected them to London-based composer Charles (François) Dieupart, whose suites may haveinfluenced Bach. Whatever their provenance, the English suites hadtaken their final shape by about 1725, although Bach continued tweak-

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ing them for years to come.As the capstone of the set, English Suite No. 6 in D minor, BWV 811

surely stands as one of Bach’s most adventuresome and innovativeexplorations of the suite genre. After a graceful introduction that couldbe a prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier, we are catapulted into awhirring concertante movement that demands both finely-honedtechnique and unbroken concentration. Nor does the tension lessen forthe densely chromatic and rhythmically complex Allemande. TheCourante keeps the technical bar high with a perpetuum mobile left-handpart, followed by the dazzling harmonies of the Sarabande, which Bachsupplies with a written-out embellished “double.” Paired gavottes offera welcome modal contrast—Gavotte II is the suite’s only dance in majormode—then comes the Gigue, a finger-snapping display piece thatwraps not only this suite, but the English suites as a whole, in glitteringvirtuoso pyrotechnics. In the manuscript Bach reveals a hitherto unsus-pected mastery of droll understatement. One word appears under thefinal measure. Fine, it says: “The end.”—Scott Foglesong

Scott Foglesong is a Contributing Writer to the San Francisco Symphony programbook.

An early eighteenth-century suite is asequence of dances,possibly with somenon-dancemovementsinterpolated. The complexity ofcontemporary danceis shown in thiseighteenth-centurynotation of thechaconne.

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Sir András Schiff Sir András Schiff was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1953 and startedpiano lessons at age five with Elisabeth Vadász. He continued his stud-ies at the Franz Liszt Academy with Pál Kadosa, György Kurtág, andFerenc Rados, and later in London with George Malcolm.

Recitals and special cycles, including the major keyboard works ofJ.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann,and Bartók form an important part of his activities. Since 2004 he hasperformed complete cycles of the thirty-two Beethoven sonatas world-wide; his performance of the cycle in the Tonhalle Zurich was recordedlive for ECM Records. He has been a regular guest of the San FranciscoSymphony since his debut in 1984.

An exclusive ECM recording artist, Mr. Schiff has released critically-acclaimed recordings of works by Schubert, Schumann, Janác=ek, Bee -tho ven, and Bach. His latest recording includes violin sonatas by Bach,Busoni, and Beethoven with violinist Yuuko Shiokawa. Encores afterBeethoven was released in 2016. Mr. Schiff’s book, Musik kommt aus derStille, featuring essays and conversations with Martin Meyer, was pub-lished in 2017 by Bärenreiter and Henschel.    

This season Mr. Schiff appears as conductor and soloist with the NewYork Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony, and gives more than adozen recitals in two North American visits. His other concert perfor -mances bring him to Europe, Australia, Japan, China, and South America. 

In 1999 he created his own chamber orchestra, Cappella AndreaBarca. From 1989 to 1998 he was artistic director of the MusiktageMond see chamber music festival near Salzburg, and in 1995, togetherwith Heinz Holliger, he founded the Ittinger Pfingstkonzerte in Swit -zer land. In 1998 Mr. Schiff started a similar series, entitled Hommageto Palladio at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. 

Mr. Schiff is an Honorary Member of the Beethoven House in Bonn,and he has received the Wigmore Hall Medal, the Schumann Prizeawarded by the city of Zwickau, the Golden Mozart-Medaille by theInternational Stiftung Mozarteum, the Order pour le mérite forSciences and Arts, the Grosse Verdienstkreuz mit Stern der Bundes -republik Deutschland, and he was named a Member of Honour ofVienna Konzerthaus. He has received the Royal Philharmonic Society’sGold Medal, a Special Supernumerary Fellowship from Balliol College(Oxford, UK), and honorary degrees from Leeds University and musicschools in Budapest, Detmold, and Munich. He was awarded a Knight -hood by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the 2014 Birthday Honours.

In the spring of 2011, András Schiff attracted attention because ofhis opposition to political developments in Hungary. As a result, he hasdecided not to perform again in his home country.

Bösendorfer 280VC concert grand piano provided by Yamaha Artist Services,New York.

ARTIST

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Tuesday, April 17, 2018 at 8:00 Davies Symphony Hall

Sir András Schiff piano

Schumann Theme and Variations in E-flat major, WoO 24, Ghost Variations (1854)

Theme: Quiet and inwardly Variation I Variation II: Canon Variation III: Somewhat lively Variation IV Variation V

Brahms Three Intermezzos, Opus 117 (1892)

no.1, E-flat major no.2, B-flat minor no.3, C-sharp minor

Mozart Rondo in A minor, K.511 (1787)

Brahms Six Piano Pieces, Opus 118 (1893)

Intermezzo in A minor Intermezzo in A major Ballade in G minor Intermezzo in F minor Romanze in F major Intermezzo in E-flat minor

I N T E R M I S S I O N

and

present

ANDRÁS SCHIFF

APRIL 17

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J.S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 869, from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (1722)

Brahms Four Piano Pieces, Opus 119 (1893)

Intermezzo in B minor Intermezzo in E minor Intermezzo in C major Rhapsody in E-flat major

Beethoven Sonata No. 26 in E-flat major, Opus 81a, Les Adieux (1810) Farewell: Adagio—Allegro Absence: Andante espressivo Reunion: Vivacissimamente

ANDRÁS SCHIFF

APRIL 17

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Schumann: Theme and Variations in E-flat major,WoO 24, Ghost Variations

IT WAS A MELODY “DICTATED BY THE ANGELS” ACCORDING TO A COM-poser who was by 1854 poised on a knife’s edge between sanity andmadness. For perhaps a week in mid-February Robert Schumann (1810-56) was lucid enough not only to write down the “angel” melody butbegin some variations. His stability was brief, however. On February 27he attempted suicide by throwing himself into the Rhine, was rescuedand returned home, and began the journey that would lead to the asy-lum in Endenich from which he would never return.

Earlier on that fateful day Schumann had finished what his wifeClara would call a “fair copy” of the variations, although her descrip-tion wasn’t altogether accurate. Given the tragic circumstances, Clararefused to release the manuscript for publication, although she didarrange for an edited copy that eventually provided the basis for the1939 first edition.

The Ghost Variations are easily Schumann’s least-performed workfor solo piano. The theme itself is a two-part affair that ends with a nodto its opening phrase. The five variations that follow are, in order, gen-tly rocking, imitative, skittish, melancholy, and flamboyant at the last.Whatever the work’s overall quality (one reviewer has dubbed it a “weemasterpiece”) it is nonetheless highly significant, the product of amagnificent mind on the precipice of its tragic dissolution.

Brahms: Three Intermezzos, Opus 117 Six Piano Pieces, Opus 118 Four Piano Pieces, Opus 119

IN AN 1892 LETTER TO CLARA SCHUMANN ON HER SEVENTY-THIRDbirthday, Johannes Brahms (1833-97) wrote with resignation about ayear-long dispute that had nearly ended their friendship:

After forty years of faithful service (or whatever you care to callmy relationship with you) it is very hard to be merely “anotherunhappy experience” . . . But let me repeat to you today that youand your husband constitute the most beautiful experience ofmy life, and represent all that is richest and most noble in it.

Fortunately, a reconciliation was effected, and it would appear thatthe rarefied piano works of Brahms’s last years played a role in therestoration of their bond. As of 1892 Clara’s health was failing as washer piano technique, but she cherished playing these pieces as Brahmsshowed them to her prior to publication. Surely these intensely per-sonal compositions were as much ruminations or meditations as theywere public concert material. Which is not to say that they are unsuit-able for concert use; on the contrary, they require exceptional andattentive care from performer and listener alike.

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Three Intermezzos, Opus 117Opus 117 consists of three intermezzos, each of a markedly gentle andintimate character. The first, in E-flat major, quotes a Scottish folk song“Sleep softly, my child, sleep softly and happily!” Brahms places theconsoling melody in an inner voice and surrounds it with a discant sus-tained tone in the soprano and chordal support in the bass. The mid-place Più Adagio, in the minor mode, alternates syncopated melodicfigures with references to the lullaby melody; the third section recapit-ulates the first, with modest variation.

No. 2, in the decidedly dark-hued key of B-flat minor, more hintsthan states its melody amid a soft flurry of right-hand arpeggios. Ahymn-like contrasting passage in the major mode leads to a recap ofthe original material; a valedictory revisit of the hymn-like passageprovides the conclusion.

If it weren’t for the Andante con moto tempo, No. 3 in C-sharpminor might stand among the most melancholy pieces in Brahms’sentire catalog. However, both tempo and the directive sotto voce sempreindicate more introversion than depression. A shift to A major marksthe middle section, in which a disjointed, offbeat main melody lightlybut firmly resists being shoehorned into metric regularity. The originalmaterial returns abridged, and the piece closes with a nobly resignedstatement of its primary theme.

Six Piano Pieces, Opus 118The six pieces making up Opus 118 date from 1893 and represent a mod-est departure from the Intermezzo-Capriccio duality of Opuses 78 and116, in that the set contains a Ballade and a Romanze in addition tofour Intermezzos; there are no Capriccios, neither here nor in Opus 119.

That said, No. 1 in A minor, an Intermezzo marked Allegro non assai,ma molto appassionato (Not too fast, but very passionate) seems aCapriccio in everything but name. A wisp of a theme—just three de -scending steps—appears and reappears without unnecessary elaborationbut in a wide variety of harmonic and sonic garbs. A measure of equa-nimity characterizes the A major ending, which prepares the listener for:

No. 2 in A major, Andante teneramente, is one of the crown jewelsof Brahms’s late piano works. Intensely songful, it has an aria-like qual-ity that has rendered it unusually receptive to orchestral transcrip-tions—normally not a good idea given the profoundly pianistic natureof the Brahms intermezzos.

The Ballade in G minor in the No. 3 position reminds us of an earlierBrahms in its burly chordal sonorities, its hewn-from-rock piano figu-rations, and even its Allegro energico tempo marking. But there’ssomething playful about it as well, something slightly tongue-in-cheek, noted by biographer William Murdoch in his 1933 descriptionof it as “this battle-horse of aspiring school-girls.”

Brahms, consummate master of ambiguity that he was, outdoeshimself in the F minor Intermezzo, No. 4. The “A” section is made upof offbeat triplet figures outlining chords and/or octaves, while the dis-tinctly unsettled “B” section builds a chain of interlocking harmonies,one link at a time. A decidedly intensified recapitulation of section A

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leads to a clear-cut F major sonority for the ending which, like the sec-ond Intermezzo of the set, leads the listener directly to:

No. 5 in F major, a Romanze that resembles one of Brahms’s folksong settings. It opens with an uncomplicated descending melody thatis stated four times, each with slight variance. A shift to D major intro-duces a mini ature chaconne, i.e., evolving variations over a static bass.A return to the original key and melody—stated then repeated oncewith slight variation—brings the piece to an unruffled close.

The concluding Intermezzo, No. 6 is in the unusual key of E-flatminor. Could the opening have begun in Brahms’s mind as a clarinetsonata, given its similarity to the Clarinet Quintet, Opus 115? What -ever its provenance, the bittersweet nature of its first section gives wayto a G-flat major section suggestive of a younger Brahms, all octavesand brusquely heroic sonorities, before returning to the original keyand material, which Brahms progressively distills to a pure E-flat minorar peggio, thereby bringing Opus 118 to a desolate, haunting close.

Four Piano Pieces, Opus 119Clara Schumann aptly described the Intermezzo in B minor that opensOpus 119 as “a gray pearl. Do you know them? They look as if they wereveiled, and are very precious.” Theoretically the piece is in B minor, butBrahms scrupulously withholds that information from the listeneruntil the last few bars.

A second Intermezzo, in E minor, provides a superb lesson in theexpressive potential of Brahms’s favored technique of “developingvari ation,” in which a small idea is continually modified and en hancedin preference to adding new material. The “A” section is characterizedby jittery rhythms within incessant variation of its basic three-noteidea, giving way to a radiant E major middle section that evokes theAustrian Ländler, almost aching with nostalgia despite being made upof precisely that same three-note seed idea; it puts in a brief, almost

Page from the manuscript score of the first Intermezzo from Brahms’s Six Piano Pieces, Opus 118.

Surely these intensely

personal compositions

were as much

ruminations or

meditations as they

were public concert

material.

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furtive appearance right at the end.A third Intermezzo explores the uncomplicated luminosity of C

major with an inner-voice melody that slowly but surely edges itselfaway from harmonic simplicity before returning to the elementalpleasure of its original tonality.

Opus 119—and Brahms’s output for solo piano—concludes withthe Rhapsody in E-flat major, an extended affair very much in theheroic vein of Brahms’s earlier Two Rhapsodies, Opus 79 but in a con-siderably more compressed and concentrated manner. Its forward-charging energy comes almost as a shock after the introversion of theprevious three Intermezzos, but a middle section in A-flat major pro-vides relief via salon-like graciousness and ornamentation. But theRhapsody’s essential roughness can be held at bay for only so long, andafter the resumption of the thundering chords of the first section thepiece ends in a fusillade of E-flat minor.

Mozart: Rondo in A minor for Piano, K.511

IN EARLY 1787 WOLFGANG AMADÈ MOZART (1756-91) WAS SAILING THEheights of heady success and renown. He had just returned fromPrague where The Marriage of Figaro had been a smash hit, and he wasjust about to start work on Don Giovanni in addition to several stringquintets and the serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik. It has been suggestedthat perhaps Mozart originally improvised the A minor Rondo, butwhatever the provenance it was published in 1787. In classic Rondoform (A-B-A-C-A) it contrasts a decidedly melancholic reprise withepisodes—one in F major and the other in A major—that are of abrighter, and even slightly dancelike, character. Pianists and scholarsalike tend to have strong opinions about the work’s overall character,but whether deemed despairing, tragic, or pensive, it definitely war-rants Hermann Abert’s evaluation as “one of the most important key-board rondos ever composed.”

J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 869,from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1

SURELY THE BEDROCK FOUNDATION OF KEYBOARD LITERATURE, THEWell-Tempered Clavier (1722) of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)demonstrated that not only did advances in tuning facilitate the play-ing of keyboard instruments in all available major and minor keys, butit also illuminated the differing affects, or emotional temperatures, ofthose varying keys.

B minor, the key of Prelude and Fugue, BWV 869, stands for matterselevated and spiritual (consider Bach’s Mass in B minor, BWV 232). ItsPrelude suspends a gradually unfolding two-voice texture over a steadywalking bass, the whole straying only occasionally from minor tonality.The Fugue has long fascinated theoreticians due to its incorporation ofall twelve tones of the chromatic scale in its subject, not to mention

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harmony of such chromatic complexity as to challenge listener andperformer alike to remain tonally grounded.

Beethoven: Sonata in E-flat major, Opus 81a, Les Adieux

COMPOSED IN 1810, THE E-FLAT SONATA, OPUS 81A (NICKNAMED LESAdieux) of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) is the third of a triptychthat includes Opus 78 in F-sharp major and Opus 79 in G major, bothfrom 1809. All three sonatas reflect a marked departure from the sym-phonic ambitions of the Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas of fouryears earlier.

Opus 81a strays even farther from the norm by being Beethoven’ssole gesture towards program music among the piano sonatas. It con-cerns his long friendship with the Archduke Rudolf, no mean musicianhimself and the dedicatee of numerous important Beethoven works.“It is with the emotions of parting, absence, and reunion of suchfriends, and with no external circumstances, that this sonata deals,”writes ace commentator Sir Donald Francis Tovey. “Nothing in it wouldlead us to guess that while Beethoven’s friend was absent (with the restof the royal family) Vienna was being attacked by Napoleon’s forces . . .All that he chose to tell of these terrible days in his music was that hehad said farewell to a dear friend and that he was longing for thefriend’s return.”

A falling “Lebewohl” (Farewell—Les Adieux in French) figure opens thesonata and provides the seed ideas for both primary and secondarythemes. The second-movement Abwesenheit (Absence), consisting ofvariations on a pensive and melancholic theme, “admirably solves theproblem of expressing the sorrow of absence without inflicting its te -dium on the listener.” (Tovey again, always good for a wry quip.) Thencomes the arms-outflung joy of Das Wiedersehen (Return), its primarytheme outlining sturdy major triads while the secondary theme providescontrast without any dampening of enthusiasm. A brief coda offers amoment of pensiveness (Poco andante), but soon enough joyousnessreturns, capped off by an ecstatic starburst of octaves.—Scott Foglesong

Scott Foglesong is a Contributing Writer to the San Francisco Symphony programbook.

Romanticizedpainting ofBeethoven atseventeen,improvising at thepiano for Mozart and friends.